Category Archives: Rambling Thoughts

Post navigation

One year ago I spent a month as a resident at the Vermont Studio Center, where focused on essay writing. This essay about open ocean sailing was written while at the center, in response to fellow resident’s question.

Leaving without a fixed destination to arrive to an uncertain welcome. That is why I sail.

It’s the first thing I tell landlubbers who ask, “What is it like, to sail across an ocean in a small boat?”

I could describe the long, loping swell of the deep ocean. The black, moonless nights when the darkness chokes my mind. The curl of blue bioluminescence on a breaking wave. The way a new dawn paints the deck candy floss pink. I could describe the welling of joy when dolphins appear and the secrets we share. But I always begin with the thrill of leaving port.

My port clearance is a precious document, the paper clearing boat and crew of debts and warrants and unpaid bar tabs, free to leave without obligation to say where we will come to rest. A zarpe, outbound clearance, a chit that sets you free. The thrill of limbo when I travel without destination sets my imagination afloat.

I aim my boat into blue waters, seeking wind and way. A month of waves may kiss my keel, then, just miles from port, I gybe away. To another coast, a friendlier nation, somewhere downwind from here. Perhaps I’ll never return, never arrive, betwixt and between, alone at sea. I’ll sail in circles, north to the pole, south to the ice, east and then west until land stands in the way. I could if I wanted to.

When the wind blows hard from the north, we aim for Yemen rather than Oman. When our water runs low we stop in Alaska on our way to Japan. If the sailing is good I’ll pass New Zealand and aim straight for Tahiti.

It isn’t always so, this ticket to eternal noncommittal freedom. If you are port hopping in an island nation, or skipping down a nation’s coast, authorities may ask your destination. But when you raise your sail to cross the Atlantic Ocean, The Arabian Sea, crossing a great expanse to a land far away, you wave farewell and slip away into a world between nations, free of borders, free of customs, duties and right of abode.

Tell me, where else can you wander like this? Which train carries you across a border without two nations, one to exit, one to enter? No airliner takes off without a destination on your boarding pass. Roads that lead to the fronterra cross to the other side.

But not when I go to sea.

“Don’t you get bored, day after day with nothing new to do or see?” the landlubbers ask.

Bored? No. Never. I’m too engrossed in the blue soul of the Indian Ocean, light shot through it like a drift of silver filings. The fear that punches through the bottom of my belly when I look aft and see a grey wave, two, three stories high, with anger in its face. The brilliant flash of metal and blue, streaks of yellow, as a tuna hits the lure. Hand over hand, in it comes, the first fresh food of the voyage.

There’s too much work, helming hour after hour, trimming, changing sails. An inch of ease for a tenth of speed. Or making repairs, jury-rigging when you don’t have spares. Baking bread, cooking dinner, cleaning the head.

My father, an old farmer, came aboard my boat. Never sailed, never cruised, a life spent working hard. He knew nothing of the sea. I was proud, showing him my world. And I waited, wanting a hand on the shoulder saying, son, you’ve done well. Nothing. A silent, critical eye.

“So Dad, what do you think of sailing?”

“Seems like an awful lot of work to go real slow.”

I couldn’t argue. The whole point is to go real slow, to appreciate the subtle shifts of scene. Sometimes I just sit and stare at the sea. Every cloud that passes creates a new blue, new grey, new frothy white cap on the wave. Sometimes there are thrills, a squall that makes us long for home. A whale, a school of dolphins showing us the way. But even without, even if it’s calm, we’re still sailing in a kaleidoscope of shifting shape and light. The setting sun on a clean horizon, the masthead light joining Orion. Darkness so deep it’s hard to stay on your feet. Watching the stars revolve, picking a new one to point the way. Then the dawn. Oh, the dawn. First a tinge of grey, then blues and pinks and tangerine light. The white decks glow, waves and wind that frightened in the night pushed back by the light. If I show you the dawn of open sea you will love me. You’ll know what’s for real.

And then, a few weeks in, someone gets lucky on their watch.

“Land! I think I see land!”

A dark smudge on the horizon turns into mountains, beaches and trees and sand. An excitement takes hold. We clean, we shower, we put the ship in order, we work even harder.

Port of Aden, Dutch Harbour, Port of Jamestown, Pond Inlet, Galle, Salalah. Ports and not marinas, not moored next to superyachts and motor cruisers, but ships of war and coastal barges, the grit and grim of a working harbour. The docks are painted with tar, the water streaked with oil. This is not the country’s best face. But it’s where we arrive, alongside working men and foreign cargos, by the kitchen door. Others, less fortunate I’d say, are disgorged into shiny halls, then a taxi and a hotel in a predictable order. We hoist our yellow flag, a declaration of quarantine, inviting corrupt officials to board.

“Perhaps you have a gift for me? Ah thank you, but my brother, he likes Marlboros too.”

Our first requests are fuel and water and is there a sailmaker in this port? And once she’s secure, the papers signed and bilge inspected, we step ashore.

A cold beer, that day’s newspaper, a meal that’s fresh and green. A walk about town, perhaps a souvenir. And then I begin to wonder, what does the forecast say, when will the wind blow and get us out of here?

The Red Mill, the main building of the Vermont Studio Center, in the year’s first snowfall.

I’m at the Vermont Studio Center, in Johnson, VT for a month-long writing residency. The art center is based in repurposed turn-of-the-century buildings in the center of town — houses, church, grain mill, dance hall, gymnasium — all turned into studios, housing and dining hall. It’s a lovely place with about 50 residents in addition to a large community of staff artists and writers. I’m here to work on a series of essays.

Writing residents are given opportunities read their work to the community in regular readings held in the Lowe Lecture Hall, a wonderful old converted theatre. I chose to read from the manuscript of Menno Moto: A Journey in Search of Identity. It’s the first time I’ve read any of this work publicly, and I hope there will be many more readings once it gets published. You can listen to an audio recording of the reading here:

The temple is filled with the fug of incense, the air musty with 400 years worth of prayers that have been offered up towards its wooden beams. I’m not a religious man, and certainly not one who prays to Chinese gods, but these are special circumstances. If it worked for pirates, it might work for me.

Outside, the tangy brine fills my nostrils and the unrelenting wind tugs at my hair. I stand at the threshold, the darkness of the temple behind me, the sea just a few blocks away, knowing that thousands of sailors have stood in this spot, like me, wishing the winds would back off a little.

From the Penghu Mazu Temple, the goddess of the sea, known as Tin Hau in Cantonese, has watched over this Taiwanese archipelago’s seafarers for four centuries, offering her protection from countless typhoons like the one that is now darkening the skies.

I came to notoriously windy Penghu, an archipelago of 90 islands, to experience its maritime culture and soak in the folklore of pirates and conquering navies. Now I’m experiencing the uncertainty of being a Taiwan Strait sailor. Penghu’s mariners learned long ago that the winds are out of their control, hence the 183 temples scattered across the islands, some large and grand, others so small and nondescript they’re hard to find.

Severe Tropical Storm Fung-wong is churning her way north, aimed squarely at Taiwan. As soon as my flight touched down in Magong, the islands’ main town, my skipper called to warn me that our sailing trip would be delayed.

Like any restless shore-bound sailor, I seek ways to kill time.

Magong is a maze of criss-crossing streets, the heart of the old town lying low and grey behind ancient walls, huddled against the elements. New, garish hotels and empty boulevards sit exposed to the steady rush of wind. The town’s bars have been shut down for the season, and I haven’t spotted any bordellos around the port, so I rent a scooter and ride the island’s winding roads.

The reliance of the Penghu Islands, also known as the Pescadores, on the ocean is evident at every turn; from ancient houses and garden walls built of greying coral to the waft of drying fish.

Settlement of these islands began some 700 years ago, 400 years before the Chinese arrived on the Taiwanese mainland, and they served as a way station for people migrating from Fujian province to Taiwan, leaving the chain scattered with historical sites.

Numerous navies have anchored off the Penghu shores, their colonial forces engulfing the islands and then receding again, like the storms that sweep over the low-lying land. The Dutch came to Taiwan in 1624, were challenged by the Spanish and were eventually dislodged by Ming-dynasty loyalist Zheng Chenggong, whose Latinised name was Koxinga.

He was a privateer with a vast fleet and control over large swathes of China’s coastline, and the Penghu Islands were a frequent hideout. Koxinga used Taiwan as a base in his failed fight to overthrow the Qing dynasty and restore the Ming.

Eventually, the French came and built a fort overlooking Magong, but their stay was short, and they were long gone by the time the Japanese moved in for a 50-year stay, only to be replaced by the Chinese Nationalists.

Now it is the Republic of China’s armed forces who are stationed on a far-flung promontory, their base built around the stately Yuwengdao Lighthouse, which was designed by a British engineer for the Chinese imperial government in 1828. Soldiers peer from behind rusted gates and banks of sagging sand bags, the camouflage paint on the buildings peeling in the sun. They slouch with boredom, staring across the strait at an ideological enemy that batters the island with tourists instead of artillery shells.

The islands have long been viewed as a frontline in tensions with mainland China, and martial law was only lifted in 1979, allowing people from Taiwan proper unfettered access for the first time. Penghu has since tried to grow a tourism industry, to prop up its tepid economy, offering as enticement its long, pristine beaches and azure water.

On July 23, Magong hit the front pages of newspapers when TransAsia Airways Flight 222, from Kaohsiung, crashed when landing in heavy winds and careened into nearby homes, killing all but 10 of its 58 passengers and crew.

“They were almost all from here, from Penghu, so it was very bad. Everyone knew someone affected,” says my host, Tom Chen, proprietor of the oddly named 1,2,3 V-Stone B&B, which is located a short walk from the main harbour and a five-minute drive from the centre of Magong, in a rapidly developing part of town.

“Now everyone is scared, so with this storm there will be no flights or ferries until it is gone.”

The snaking road that connects the islands via bridges and causeways leads to Wai-an, in Siyu township, a small village perched in front of a hill that threatens to push it into the sea. The village is centred on its port, the main street tracing a line of bollards on the wharf and each side street leading to and from the water.

The harbour is jammed with fishing boats, with more arriving every hour, seeking shelter from the impending storm. The boats appear first as dots on the horizon, riding a white wake as they draw near. They rumble into the port and tie up three deep along the wharf, where fishermen sleep in hammocks or squat on their haunches, cigarettes smouldering between their lips as they repair their nets.

“Looks bad, doesn’t it,” I ask a group of fishermen sitting on the wharf, surrounded by billowing heaps of net. They squint, looking up at the sky, where the sun still shines despite the dark bruise on the southern horizon.

“It will be over tomorrow,” they assure me. “The storm comes one day and then it is gone.”

The wind may prove inconvenient at times, but it does draw tourists to Penghu, whether for windsurfing, kite boarding or, more recently, sailing; the Penghu Regatta Week is held every June.

The fishermen were wrong, being out by two days, but finally the weather breaks, the wind dies and the skies clear.

We slip the lines on our 40-foot catamaran and motor to the harbour master’s station, to officially clear port before heading out to sea. A stream of fishing boats floods out of the harbour alongside us, crews eager to lower their nets.

Soon we’re making our way down the coast, where the ornate, curved roofs of the temples stand high above village houses. From the sea I can’t be sure which of the temples venerate Mazu, so instead I mouth a prayer of thanks into the breeze, sure that it will eventually reach the goddess of the sea.

I am still trying to get comfortable in my seat and come to terms with steering the canoe when my brother points to the sky. A bald eagle with a two-metre wingspan soars overhead, its brilliant white head twisting back and forth in search of prey.

The eagle circles us in a lazy loop and then, with two smooth strokes of its wings, disappears over the treetops. When I come back down to earth, I find that our canoe is drifting down the Manigotagan River sideways – which is bad news, because it’s getting dark and we have yet to find a campsite.

The Manigotagan is only a few hours north of Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba province. But we could just as well be a thousand miles from civilisation as the river carries us through the Canadian Shield, the massive rock craton that forms the core of the North American continent. This is rolling land with rock outcrops that were rounded off by the last ice age, leaving room for boreal forests and marshes. Maps show long, narrow lakes, all running in the same direction, torn into the earth by the slow claw of ice.

Atop each rocky outcrop, at every roaring waterfall or quiet bend where the river slows, history invites us to imagine. To envision humans on this river thousands of years ago, proud natives traversing their land; the first European fur traders and voyageurs, men who came searching for their fortunes in Canada’s wilderness, toiling their way up and down this watery highway.

A nearby archaeological site proves that human habitation of the Manigotagan area began at least 2,000 years ago and use intensified when aboriginal people underwent a cultural shift from relying on grassland hunting to life in the forest, where they survived on fish, small mammals, waterfowl and wild rice.

When white men discovered the forests’ bounty, they set up the Bad Throat fur-trading post at the mouth of the river, on the eastern shores of Lake Winnipeg. The river became an important trade route for trappers and their canoes, and they were soon followed by loggers and miners. Rusting iron machinery, empty trappers’ cabins, shards of pottery and tent circles all mark chapters in this river’s history.

That trading post has become the town of Manigotagan, which continues to rely on nature, with forestry, commercial fishing, wild rice harvesting and tourism being the economic mainstays. The river is now travelled by weekend canoeists looking to connect with nature. The longest canoe trips stretch to 102km – five to seven days of paddling – and the last 70km of the downriver journey has no exits. After 32km, you’re committed to a week-long journey.

We start at the mouth and work our way upstream. Just as daylight begins to fade, we come to a thundering set of waterfalls. There are dozens of falls and rapids along the river, most of which must be skirted. This requires us to unload both two-man canoes and carry everything on forest paths that pass the dangerous water: a process called portaging.

At Old Woman’s Falls, the river appears to be trying to dislodge a small island. The water sweeps around the rocky obstruction before roaring into narrow chutes on either side.

We gingerly land our canoes in eddies only metres from the maelstrom and drag them up to safety before scouting out a campsite. The island is one of the most popular campsites on the river but it is late in the year and no one else is braving the chilly weather. Or perhaps the ghost of the old woman whose death here gave the falls their name has scared them away.

Firewood collected and tent erected, we are soon sitting around a crackling campfire with dinner simmering in a pot. A few streaks of light remain in the sky and the falls are now just a flash of white in the dusk, a steady clamour of water bashing itself against the rocks.

The topography along the Manigotagan ranges from sheer rock faces topped with craggy Jack pine and a thin skin of rock-tripe lichen to thick green stands of balsam poplar, green ash and elderberry. Our small island is covered in towering pines, the reflection of the river glinting through gaps between the trunks.

And there is wildlife; the entire river lies within protected parkland filled with, among other creatures, moose, black bear, wolf and woodland caribou. Beavers can be seen working along the banks.

We sit, passing a rum bottle in circles, until we have depleted our wood pile and the fire fades. We give the dishes a hurried scrub in the frigid water, the clattering of pots echoing across the river. We crawl into our tent, hoping that whatever the large brown furry thing we saw earlier was, it won’t be brave enough to swim across Old Woman’s Falls.

The next day, we continue upriver, leaving the campsite set for our return. We spend the morning paddling over gentle rapids. At midday we find a rock outcrop overlooking Big Skunk Rapids. The others gather wood while I mix up a batch of bannock, the simple flat-bread that is the traditional mainstay of native American cooking. We crouch around the fire, watching the dough turn a golden brown flecked with ash.

After lunch, we turn back, now riding with the current. My other brother, in the second canoe with his son, eyes up a low set of rapids that we portaged around earlier.

“I think we can run those, eh?” he says, as much a challenge as a question.

His canoe slips into the current, dips, bobs, is caught in a spray of water, as we hold our position in an eddy. I can see only heads.

A few moments later, a drenched duo are treading water, one at each end of the swamped canoe, gasping with shock at the cold.

“Get your canoe around the rapids and get us out of the water! Hurry!”

We do as we’re told, less careful about the canoe’s paint than we were on earlier portages. The pair roll into our canoe, sodden and shivering, rocking the craft until I worry that we will all be swimming soon.

Back at Old Woman’s Falls, a fire leaping through the grating and clothing strung from the trees, the story is retold with added flourishes, a gentle nip of warning from nature.

The next day we break camp and turn for home, letting the current slowly pull us towards Lake Winnipeg. The sun breaks through the clouds and remains free, bringing out the blue reflection of the sky on the water, the emerald green of trees and moss.

As we approach our landing spot, where pick-up truck, mobile phones and cluttered life await, what looks like the same bald eagle takes flight out of a poplar tree along the banks.

Once again it circles and eyes us, as if tallying to check whether those who ventured into his hunting grounds have returned alive.

I went trekking in the Indian Himalaya in June. Here’s the long version of the story that ran in the SCMP Post Magazine this Sunday, on the web, and the pdf file.

The camp is stirring to life. I’ve opened my eyes, once, briefly, to confirm that it is daylight. Now I nestle down into my sleeping bag, savouring its warmth as I wait for that magical moment that reminds me that this isn’t just another camping trip.

The tent opens with a zzzzip and rustle of nylon, and there stand Gaurav and Saurav, two teenage brothers working as the cook’s assistants. They hand me a cup of steaming hot chai, which I take into my tent before zipping the door closed.

We are high in the Indian Himalayas, in the state of Uttarakhand, about 50 kilometres shy of the Tibetan border, amongst the headwaters of the Ganges. I’ve done my fair share of camping and rough, backcountry travel, but never with a full posse of cooks, porters and guides; a 1-to-1 ratio of staff for 10 trekkers. The time and energy this leaves for savouring and reflecting on this phenomenal corner of India takes me back to an earlier time of exploration.

As I sit cross legged in my tent, carefully setting my tin cup aside to cool, I open the books that have become my guides. Not trail guides that tell me to turn left at the big tree or cross the river near the bend, but guides for the mind and the eye as I follow in the footsteps of mountaineering icons.

“Mountaineering in the Garhwal and Kumaon Himalayas more nearly resembles mountaineering in Switzerland, the country is unspoiled by commercialism,” Frank S. Smythe wrote in his 1949 book The Valley of Flowers, which describes his expedition through this region. “There are no railways, power lines, roads and hotels to offend the eye and distract from the primitive beauty and grandeur of the vistas, and there are peaks innumerable, unnamed and unclimbed, of all shades of difficulty and valleys that have never seen a European, where a simply kindly peasant folk graze their flocks in the summer months.”Smythe’s book, along with The Ascent of Nanda Devi by H.W. Tilman and Nanda Devi by Eric Shipton, are landmark accounts of early Himalayan mountaineering. All of them describe these very mountains and trails in Northern India as they were eight decades ago. Greener than the northern side of the range in Tibet and Nepal, India’s Garhwal region is filled with quiet valley villages and high meadows rich in grass, with each ripple of the landscape pointing the way deeper and higher into the world’s greatest mountain range.

They were all drawn to the region by Nanda Devi, at 7816 meters the highest mountain in India, and at the time, the biggest in the British Empire. It stands in the middle of a basin ringed by 7,000 meter peaks, creating the famous Nanda Devi Sanctuary. We’re only trekking the approaches to the famed mountain, but these historic accounts spend many pages describing the same valleys and mountains we are traversing.

Times have changed since Smythe’s description, but Uttarakhand is still raw and undeveloped, the disadvantages of which became evident in June, 2013 when heavy rains caused devastating floods and landslides in the country’s worst natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami. More than 5,700 people were killed, and the army had to evacuate more than 110,000 people from the steep valleys in this mountainous state. The mountains stills how raw scars from landslides and the roads are still buried in rubble.

Today, there are roads and electricity, in places, but visitors are still few and far between. In ten days of trekking we do not see one other European trekker, and only a handful of local groups. We are trekking in high season, crossing and joining famous routes such as the Curzon Trail and Roop Kund Trail as we weave our way through the mountains towards the Kuari Pass, but still, we have the mountains to ourselves.

Actually, we weren’t totally alone, as the high meadows were dotted with sheep chased up from the valleys for summer grazing. One morning we ate our breakfast under a cloudless sky, the rarefied Himalayan air sharpening every colour, ridge line and glint of sunshine that struck the rolling meadow. Our table, made from the tin chests used by the porters, was moved out of the dining tent to offer us an uninterrupted view of the string of snow-capped peaks on the horizon.

As we ate, hundreds of sheep made their way through our camp, bleating as they daintily picked their way between tents in search of fresh grass, the shepherd exchanging greetings with the porters as he slowly walked behind his flock. The flock opened and engulfed our breakfast table like a river around a rock. We sat, our tin cups of chai paused in mid air, watching them. Some of us scrambled for cameras, other broke into laughter at the absurdity of the scene.

Our days fell into a comfortable rhythm. We awoke early and ate a hot breakfast that catered to Western tastes while the porters began breaking camp. Each day, as the tents came down, the porters built a pyramid of shiny tiffin boxes, lunches that were stuffed into rucksacks as we exited the camp and began the day’s hike.

We often began with a steep climb, as our camps were made in valleys, near water sources. Then, by noon, we’d be on a ridge, breathless from the work and thin air, our eyes roving across the spectacular skyline of peaks.

“As the drew is dried up by the morning sun, so are the sins of mankind by the sight of the Himachal,” reads the Skanda Puranam, an ancient Hindu holy text.

We would feast our eyes on the spectacle while devouring our lunches, resting for the afternoon push. By mid afternoon we’d amble into the next camp, having walked between 10 and 15 kilometres, and often climbed well over 1,000 meters during the day. The mules and porters, taking shortcuts and relying on legs stronger than ours, usually had the cook tent up by the time we arrived. Chai and snacks were quickly served. The platter of channa masala, a snack of chick peas with chopped tomatoes, onions and coriander, was passed around as we reflected upon what we’d seen on the trail that day.

It was then, aglow with the effort of the day’s hike and satiated by the tea, that we had our best opportunities to soak in the grandeur of the mountains. Some camps offered unobstructed views of the peaks, others were set beside rushing rivers or overlooking broad valleys. The light would soften, the air would cool until jackets were needed, and the camp became domesticated with strings of laundry and the smell of dinner underway.

Dinner, we quickly learned, was not to be missed, as it consisted of at least four hot dishes, plus bread and rice. Suman, our cook, rarely repeated a dish on our 10 day journey. Rajma, dals, various paneer preparations, stuffed bitter gourd, chole battura and tibetan style dumplings were all prepared on two kerosene burners, with all supplies hauled on mules. When we were all sighing and setting our plates aside the waiters arrived at the dining tent with banana fritters in chocolate sauce, rice puddings and freshly baked cakes. We had to keep walking, or we’d grow fat.

Smythe’s book kept me scanning the high meadow passes and valley trails shaded by pine and chestnut trees, searching for the myriad of flowers he identified on his trek. The ground was carpeted in millions of tiny primula blooms, purple, red, blue and yellow, close to the ground to hide from the constant wind, unfaded by the baking Himalayan sun. There was the bright blue Eritrichium Strictum, which looked like a forget-me-not, the rare dwarf Iris Decora, and the Arum, or Arisema Wallichianum, a cobra headed plant that looked vaguely evil.

The meadows were also a source of riches for the isolated villages we came across. The Parahi herders were moderate Hindus, as influenced by the Buddhists to the north as their compatriots to the south, and we encountered them nearly every day on the trail, bodies hardened by their mountain life but smiles filled with warmth.

“The natives are short and sturdy, and fairer in colour than the inhabitants of the plains. Blue eyes and cheeks tinged with red are not uncommon and some of the women are very beautiful,” Shipton wrote of the locals eight decades ago, and his words still rung true.

They ranged the mountains tending their sheep, and, for a few short weeks each summer, in search of kira jhar, a fungus sold to Chinese medicine men as a treatment for lungs, kidneys and erectile dysfunction. It was the latter property that the village boys wandering through our camp told us about, giggling as they tried to explain. They knew it for that, and for its interruption to their play.

“We want to play cricket, but there’s not enough boys to make a game. Everyone is up in the hills, picking kira jhar” a barefooted boy said with a pout when asked why they were mopping about the camp.

It was on the high passes where I felt a little bit drunk. Not only because the altitude — we trekked as high as 4,100 meters — had me panting and dizzy with a dull ache behind my eyes, but because I could see forever. The mountain peaks, strung like jewels across the horizon, were intoxicating. Nanda Kot,Trisuli, Nanda Gunti and Mrithuni, a series of 6000 and 7,000 meter peaks, appeared repeatedly, like old friends on the far side of a river. Catching the gleam of the first morning sun here, shrouded in fog there, bathed in a golden sunset as seen from our campsite. There was still plenty for me, as an inexperienced trekker, to aspire to.

“In Britain the atmosphere subtly deceives our estimation of height and distance, but in the moisture-free atmosphere of the Himalayas the peaks look high because they are high. At midday they gleam like polished steel under a nearly vertical sun and the eye sinks with relief to the green valley floor,” Smythe wrote.

Tilman, infamous for his tetchy nature, was far more perfunctory in his descriptions of the region than Smythe and Shipton were, but even he expressed admiration for the “peculiar nature” of the landscape, where valleys at 1000 meters are filled with lush green vegetation, while snowy 7000 meter peaks are visible only 20 or 30 kilometres away. That lushness, and its few visitors, is what sets the Indian Himalayas apart from visiting the same mountain range in Tibet and Nepal. The Indian, or southern, side of the range enjoys summer monsoons, while the northern flank is much drier.

“The whole country is an intricate tangle of valleys and ridges with their attendant ravines and spurs, which, even in the foothills, are all on a scale undreamt of in this country,” Tilman wrote.

We’d set out on this trek to reach the Kuari Pass. It’s name, meaning virgin, was given by Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, in 1905, when he became the first to cross it. Or, at least it was the first time it was crossed by a man who had the means to report his success back to London.

We approached the pass on the penultimate day, and pitched our tents next to the sheep herders on the Dhakwani meadow, just as Shipton did.

“The tinkle of sheep bells and the plaintive notes of a shepherd’s pipe drew us towards as shepherd encampment, and here we spend the night, a thousand feet below the pass,” I read in his book as a shepherd chases his flock of sheep through our camp, the beasts bleating and tripping over our tent guy wires. Sheep dogs nipped at their heels, their neck kept stiff by the tin collars they wore to protect them against marauding snow leopards.

Tents were set up in a race against the clouds that were sinking ever lower, and which finally doused us in a cold, driving rain just as camp was made. That night, huddled together for warmth in the dining tent, taking extra servings of chai to stave off the cold, we speculated over what the next day would bring.

“It won’t take long to climb up to the pass in the morning,” Archit, our guide said. “This rain will end tonight, and it should clear the atmosphere and make the visibility really good.”

I crawled into my sleeping bag that night listening to the ping of raindrops on nylon, thinking of the sacredness of these mountains. We’d been on the trail for more than a week, and I felt a changed person for it, whether it was the gods or the fresh air. If the sights of the Himachal had not completely dried up my sins, they had at very least created a thirst to return.

The next morning we cross the pass, which gave us views of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Kamet and Hathi Parbat, the hewn rock and glittering snow that Shipton described as “one of the grandest mountain views in the world.”

He found it “difficult to refrain from gasping at the vastness of the scene,” and I realised nothing much had changed since the first explorers passed this way.

I spent last Sunday on the water, where I prefer to spend most of my weekends if I have the choice. Sailing, kayaking, or, in this case, on a junk boat with a group of friends.

Hong Kong junk boats can be chartered by the day, or sometimes corporations own them for employee use (this was a lot more popular before the many financial crisis’!) They are no longer the traditional junk boats with sails that the name suggests, although that’s where the name came from. These days they’re big, heavy motor yachts, with large aft decks, a small cabin/head below, and a large open top deck. Sometimes they come with full galleys. Perfect for friends to jump off of into the sea, dance in the sun (if the boat is not rolling!), drink, flirt and enjoy Hong Kong’s natural beauty.

Yes, you’re right, I haven’t updated my blog in a very long time. Mostly because I don’t have a lot of news to share…

I’m back in Hong Kong, working hard to get my book written. It’s been a slow, deeply introspective and difficult process. I thought my second book would be much easier than my first, but I was very wrong. My research into the repetitive history of the Mennonite diaspora has led me far further back into the past than I had planned, and I’m now putting the finishing touches on an expansive opening few chapters that tell the story of my family’s immigration from Russia to Canada. Although I’ve always said this would not be a book about Mennonite history, the story of that journey dovetails too well into the rest of my story not to include it.

I’m also planning a new adventure, this time in China. I have found new partners to help me bring my Red Coast project back to life, and I hope to have some news on this front within the next few weeks.

And lastly, hello to Ray. You may be the only one still checking this blog on a regular basis…

For your listening pleasure…a rambling and eclectic three-part interview conducted by Bruce Connolly of Radio Beijing. He was a wonderfully interesting person to chat with, and it’s a shame he edited out his own stories. I suspect he has a much more riveting, and certainly eccentric, story to tell than I do. He’s one of those guys that when you name a place on the globe, any place, he goes (in that lovely Scottish accent of his), “Ah yes, back when I was there in ’72 it was still under dictatorship and this guy I met…” and then you’re off and running on another yarn.

I’m at the airport in Santiago, Chile, about to fly to Winnipeg. Bike is sold, gear either tossed, given away, or jammed into my bags. I’m done and heading home! I set off for home with a rather empty bank account (budget? Oh, that! It’s busted, in a ditch somewhere in Colombia!) but I feel like the richest man alive with all I’ve seen and learned. Once again, I’ve been changed by a challenge, a journey, a goal achieved. I am incredibly lucky to be living the life I dreamt of as a child, and even luckier that you want to read about it.

Thank you for reading this blog over the past seven months. It’s been a pretty special journey. Not only have I see a good chunk of the world (19 countries!), but I have learned so much about my heritage and who we are as Mennonites. Now to fit that into a book!

Thank you to all those I’ve met along the way. The long-lost cousins, the Mennonites in far flung corners of the Americas, the bikers, the new friends made on ferries, dusty roads, in dodgy hostels, in splendid campgrounds. You, more than anything, made this journey worth the effort.

Many people have sent me notes in the past months. Encouragement, contacts, questions, challenges and advice. I’m sorry if I have not responded, but they were all deeply appreciated. Thank you!

Next up, seeing my first film, The New Northwest Passage, up on the silver screen at the Winnipeg Real to Reel Film Festival. It plays on Feb 16 and 17, I hope to see some of you there. Then, it’s back home to Hong Kong, where the real work begins…

Keep checking in for updates on the book, film, and my next adventure.

Slow down for curves,
pullover to help those in need.
But never stop,
because there’s even greater things ahead.